Three cheers for Pasadena City College English professor Ron Lanyi for taking a strong position on grading! This is just another example of the dumbing down of our higher (and I use the term broadly) education.

About four years ago I sent a letter to Chancellor Reed of the Cal State system after he was appointed, and the newspaper was kind enough to publish it. I decried the state of grading, testing, and the babying of the students at Cal State Los Angeles, based on firsthand experience.

Now that I will be graduating from CSULA this June at age 56, I am even more critical of the state of education and its negative effects.

What Lanyi is fighting is the cancerous ''social promotion'' and greed for education dollars that is eating away at our educational systems.

Look, CSULA, PCC, and all others like you - do me a favor and grade objectively against requirements that measure mastery of the material. All you're accomplishing now is tacitly approving of ''squeaking by'' - or even crawling - through various ''hallowed halls.''

My degree is worthless, thanks to all of you, and my having matriculated at CSULA is our family's favorite joke. I applaud you, Prof. Lanyi. Your students don't know how fortunate they are to have someone care enough to risk criticism and even ridicule.

Gerry D. Jackson

San Gabriel